Official X500 Owner's Lounge!

hey people! Been lurkin here since I put my order in over a month ago on the x500. Ive spent the last few days in rapture with da beest sonce its arrival! What a mashin...! I had returned my hp xd18 after a month of buggin and hdd crash and am so lucky the x500 was released on the last day of my warranty. I produce music and am a gamer on the side. So far all has blown away the HP . Disabled all the whistles on the left of keyboard as it was interferin with in game mode. Will install my music programs soon . Will update and look forward to other tips and tweaks from y/all! good ay from a yank in NORWAY

 

omr147, I was thinking of the M15x, Hp DV7T, Clevo sager machine for a moment but eh, the Asus G51J-A1, and the dell studio 17 with the core i7 and a rgb led screen. Well anyway, it was difficult for me, all these machines were great but the price of them became very high, also i just got of sick having machines with slot load drives, so a tray had to be and i have to tell you the films load so much faster on this 6X BD ROM. The HP didn't have a backlit keyboard, the Alienware was great, but to much and the best buy version just didn't have what i wanted. So i told my friend about the decisions he said to get the Toshiba what happened to do that? He said so i ordered it from J and R, if you want to get the machine then get it from there, free shipping and no taxes when shipping out of the state wherever in the united states. This machine looks really great, it is not as flashy as the x300. i like red and black accents i love the colors, the speakers are possibly the best speakers i have heard from a notebook in like forever lol. But the conexct codec does have issues. The Wifi card has no issues at all.

 

Passmark Performance test

 

I know, been through all this myself and finally concluded that Qosmio X505 is the best package available. But i must say that I expected more in terms of performance. Maybe I was over-optimistic .
Also my dilemma is that I am currently residing in Dubai. And most sites offering international shipping have it out of stock / backorderd and they cannot confirm any fix date of delivery. In Jan-2010 i am going out of town and will be back in Feb-2010. So even if i order it now i will practically have it in Feb. So i have decided to wait until then.
Anyway I also think you have made an excellent decision by selecting this lappy. Have fun .

 

Oh i will, what are you doing in Dubai? Don't worry i will do some more tests soon.

 

hi all, i'm getting ready to buy the x505-q830 model but had a few questions about future upgrades (I'm not completely sure if these are possible). my biggest gripe against any laptop that i've bought in the past is I ended up not liking the keyboard once it arrives. msi being the worst, small shift key, small arrow keys, FN key on the lower left, etc...

1) if I end up not liking the keyboard, are there keyboard replacement options out there? whether that means 3rd party or older toshiba models that may have the same design?

2) is there a work around for putting in a second hard drive, i'm confused why the q850 model can have 2 hard drives, but i think i read somewhere that on the q830 there is no cable to connect a second hard drive, if so how does the q850 model overcome this problem since the MOBO is probably the same?

3) should I expect any problems if I want to install windows 7 ultimate 64bit? ie, certain components not working

4) the 250m GPU is part of the MOBO right? not an actual card, so if it goes bad what options does the end user have?

thanks in advanced

 

have you all read the reviews at newegg? that's where I try to pick up all the CONS people are having with this model

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16834114706

 

thanks for link calyman,
I read all the reviews and the CONS are mostly superficial flaws that can be fixed or tolerated. Theres no perfect computer ...
I have to agree with all the pros! It is class!

Also,My x500-10z comes with 2 -500g hd at 5400rpm so I think some people are a little upset about the 2nd connection not available. I would think theres a way around that if mine has 2 hd's.

 

Get the hard drive caddy, and put another hard drive in there that easy probably can take up two 640 drives since its so huge, or 2 TB. In terms of the keyboard i doubt it, even if you tried the motherboard just wouldn't recognize the third party one. Well if your going to reinstall windows 7 64 bit your going to need a copy of windows vista 64 bit, don't worry the crap ware wasn't bad and Toshiba has a lot of great programs that comes with default. Don't do a clean install just get a disc from Toshiba. The GTS 250 GRDD5 is on the motherboard, but dedicated you want to change it or put sli then you will need another board, but sli will not happen for a long time due to the disputes with Nvidia and Intel could be a year or so.

 

the GTS 250 is a great card anyway, pretty top of the line, especially since its the newest bandwidth that runs great.

 

Does anyone recommend getting the extended warranty from newegg?

 

Hi I am just about to get this machine.

I live in Australia and here its known as the x500-00x.
I have one small question I rang the people I am purchasing it from and they said it only comes with w7(home) 32bit but on their website it says " it comes with a recovery partition for w7 64bit" What does that actually mean?

http://www.cworld.com.au/product_info.php?ID=171172

Does it mean that the 64bit version is on ther somewhere and I just need to get a code or something?

thanks guys

 

I agree 100%

I really thought the 4830 was gonna give it a run but in game this seems to still be a better card. Maybe the 4860 can give it a good challenge(If it ever comes out)

 

yeah it runs GTA IV very well, 35-45 FPS, and i am running it at 1280x720. Is that a picture of you if so your hot. lol

 

As far as warranty I believe you could take it to any authorized Toshiba dealer and you would be alright. I am having mine sent to me here in Saudi Arabia from Canada. It cost around $350 Canadian.
This is laptop only so add a box and some packaging.
Dimensions (W x D x H):
44.3 cm x 29.4 cm x 4.2 cm
(17.4 in. x 11.6 in. x 1.7 in.)
Weight: 4.4 kg (9.7 lb.)

 

Toshiba has "continent-based" limited international warranty. So, if you bought laptop in US and dont live on American continent (ie in Canada), you will have to send laptop back to US for warranty repair.

 

prawdawr, thanks for replying to my querry, but let me tell you what i have concluded;
Fellows here on NBR told me that the warranty is continetal (page 13 of this thread). I did some reasearch myself and it seems this is correct. But the confusion arouse when I asked my sister in NY to call toshiba and ask them. She did and they said warranty is internaional Then i did some more searching and got further confused because some evidence was also there that you can take it to any authorized dealer in the world.
So after going through all this I have concluded that it will depend solely on the so called "authorized dealer", If they are willing to help they will, otherwie it will not be possible as they will dig out documents saying warranty is not covered. As for me I am living in Dubai and i think it will take quite some time to have this model here in local market. Untill then the "authorized dealer" here will not have any parts for it and they will never want to send it to US on their resposibility; so warranty is out of question.
Anyway I like this note book enough to have it even without warranty but I have to wait before I order.
Also I am wondering why most of the sellers have it out of stock right now. Is there something fishy going on.

 

"Limited International Warranty" is how Toshiba itself calls it. Note the "limited" word - this exactly means the "continent limitation". It's still "international" because you have countries on same continent, ie. whole Europe, warranty will apply in any country there.
Warranty without this limit would be called " Worldwide International Warranty".

 

Hey Guys

Got the beastie its sweet ..one small question. The battery led... does it glow green when fully charged? I ask becasue mine says its 100% charged but still glowing red.. it did glow a more orange colour while charging but never actually turned green.

my thoughts are I have a fried battery
any input is most welcome }

thanks
Shiv

 

Why on earth do you think it should be green when charged is beyond me. User manual is your friend

Its red when fully charged and yellow when charging. Green color would go out of general color design which is red and black for X505.

 

silly me! } The x500 manual says nothing about led colour, so I assumed standard conventions applied, i.e green means go }

Another small question, is there a list somewhere that indicates which of this bloatie stuff is safe to remove?. I had an asus previously and there was a helpful sticky that told you which of the bloatware was safe to remove.

Thanks again
Shiv

 

Not aware about such a list. Personally I always reformat/install clean OS on all laptops I buy for myself, since manufacturers often put customized registry settings in which are invisible and impossible to remove - so clean install is only way to be sure

 

How good is the X505-Q850 on games like Call of Duty MW2, WoW, and other games? Good or bad with the Graphics card 250gs..?

 

Ive got bioshock,borderlands on all high settings but not at native resolution(std. 1200x1078. High resolutio works but on med settings. I am more than impressed-you will be too ,especially for a laptop! COD mw2 should run on high settings Im sure with gts 250.I am havin a little sound stuttering goin on in bioshock during machine gun fire but no problems on Borederlands-.

Ingvarr rolled his sound card back after having sound card problems during gameplay.I tried that but didnt work out as I lost my webcam sound. Any details ,Ingvarr, on your sound procedure?

This computer,by the way. is absolut VODKA!!!!!

 

Ah ok, I don't think I am ready yet to drop 2000$+ on a laptop, pretty sure I am going to end up picking up the X505-Q850 for only 1500$ with my employee discount, usually its about 1900$ on newegg and other places, what you guys think about the pricing?
Plus it has i7, SSD and other goodies.

If I do want to upgrade the video card, is there an option for that? Will I be able to find anything out there to upgrade it?

 

howdy's!

my q830 arrived yesterday, first impressions were very good, I can feel the power at my fingertips!

this is my first toshiba and my first time on windows 7

I have some questions for other owners

1) first thing I did after geting the laptop was to create recovery disks
all programs -> my toshiba -> recovery media creator

I selected Double Layer DVD media in the wizard, hit create and waited for the laptop to prompt me to insert another disk.

from what I can tell, I didnt get any error pop-ups during the create process, what was peculiar after the process was complete was the odd amounts of data stored on each disk

could someone else check the size of their recovery disk to see if it matches mine? I so appreciate this

4 total disk

system recovery disk#1 = 7.34 GB (double layer disk)
system recovery disk#2 = 2.74 GB (double layer disk)
system recovery disk#3 = 164 MB (double layer disk)

Applications & Drivers = 3.01 GB (single layer disk)

2) my second question is, can I run the recovery media creator wizard to create disk again, this time running the wizard after I have removed any unwanted bloatware and installing some of my favorite programs

is this tool like cloning the hard drive? so if I restore at a later point will it restore my machine to the way it was when the recovery disks were created. is it possible to use these recovery disks on a new hard drive "upgrade" let's say I buy a 500GB HD

thanks all.

 

There isn't a video card upgrade, even if you want to do that whenever they release something else, then you might have to buy the video card and also a new motherboard its time tasking, it could be a 1,000. Nvidia still charges sli 9800gtx for 1,100. You might as well just buy a new machine. This graphics card can pretty much handle gta IV on 1600x945 at 25-30 fps very well.

 

I didn't even realize i just could create my own recovery discs i forgot lol. Well i am going to try them now, its says a total of 3 dvdls and 1 dvd sheesh you have to be kidding me that's a lot.

 

Ok for some reason why it failed damn that sucks.

 

It says its a power performance problem.Ok for some reason why it failed damn that sucks. I didn't even realize i just could create my own recovery discs i forgot lol. Well i am going to try them now, its says a total of 3 dvdls and 1 dvd sheesh you have to be kidding me that's a lot.

 

Ok the disc is actually burning, your going to have to use a 4.7 gig disc it work with a dual layer one for some reason i know for gods sake that this burns dual layers discs, i burned one the other day.

 

I play everything on native res (1680x945) just fine - partially reason that's why I preferred 830 over 850.

Not sure about "procedure", since at the end I've replaced hard drive, reformatted it and installed a clean W7 on it. Internal microphone works fine for me.

Agreed

 

How well does it handle World of Warcraft and how about Modern Warfare 2?
Settings high? Can you run it at 1900 x 1080?

 

You can only run the games at that resolution when you have the more expansive model, it will struggle with modern warfare 2. World of war craft for most part is a not graphic intensive game. Of course you can tweak the settings and use molded nvidia drivers.

 

So I'd have to shrink the graphics settings to run MW2 or would just a resolution change do the job?
How is the load times for games?

Believe it or not, the only reason I want to go with Toshiba is because of the looks and the price that brings great value over an alienware laptop.
I mean I could get an alienware m17x (toned down version with 260gtx sli) for about 2100....
I'd have to give up the 18.4 monitor, the looks, the cheap blu-ray player (I won't be able to afford a BR upgrade right now for that laptop).
Ah decision decision.

 

I know how you feel, i was going to get a m15x, well i you can go for the one with the ssd drive for better performance but its very small only 51 gigs, but fast. It was going to be around 2,100 also. It's worth to have, just research how to tweak certain graphics card. But the advantage this machine has is it's gddr5 it can all new games quite well.

 

Core i7 is really really amazing there isn't nothing that can stop it i have ran a lot of tests nothing slows it down.

 

look gamers, this laptop looks ,feels and kiks arse. I was wondering the same stuff before I bought the beast ...load times are fast as fook ,the graphics,fps,etc.. are all very good for a laptop with a 18.4 screen.you cant get better for the price. black gloss with dimaond lines and subtle red trim. it is kool beyond!!! I could go on with the !!! ......

 

Just got it 2 nights ago
Nicest looking laptop I ever bought, and I bought a new one every year
Beatutiful screen, fast like lightning
case looks great, very glossy
Was the Best Buy I could get in canada for high priced laptop
I liked the Alienware, but they decided to overcharge us in Canada, so Dell, plz go to h***

I like everything about it tbh
* screen is gorgeous
* case is great, if easy to smudge with fingerprints
* keyboard, I like
and I tested out all the comoponents, they are fast...

Heartily recommend it
J

 

Hey guys,
I'm in the process of determining which notebook to get and I am really considering the qosmio x 500. It seems to have everything i want (work stuff,performance,gaming, etc.), but i just want to ask actual owners what they think of their machines. How is it in general, how's the quality, customer support, performance in simple tasks and gaming? This laptop has emerged as my number one choice and Im looking for a laptop that will last. Though this is my top choice, im also considering the alienware m15x and the macbook pro. Thanks for the input, it is greatly appreciated!

 

Anyone know if a 12.5mm drive will fit in the X505 series? Sure looks like it would.

 

q830 discontinued????

 

Newegg said it's sold out, i know this has nothing to do with notebooks, but we crazy people were right! World government is upon us, the climate bill has been confirmed, and passed!! Another Roman empire, world Roman Empire is now here without a single fire shot!!! http://www.infowars.com/exclusive-–...en-summit-has-established-a-world-government/ Best buy has theq830.

 

yet another era of guilt bestowed upon us just when things were lightening up...God exists ,ozone layer persists... 1349 was the year the town I live in caught the plague from dead english sailors on a boat and then claimed 2/3 of the whole country(sidenote to origins of blak metall)

oh and cool to hear the x500 is sellin out! It rocks ,all 100 watts 24/7

 

Yes it is selling out it is an amazing machine!In your town that happened really?

 

IN MY TOWN X500 SERIES HASN'T ARRIVED YET Iwas checking online resellers and I found that Toshiba direct has removed Q830 and introduced new mode Q840s.
Other resellers I have checked are either saying discontinued or raised up the price to unrealistic level. (Amazon say only 1 qty in stock). So I was wonderiing if it is discountinued.
I really wish I am worng!!

 

anyone having bluetooth problems? I have to reboot or reinstall BT stackpack after my mouse has been idling. Using my backup dongle right now. Some network conflict ..?!

whats the q40? Always an upgrade right after you buy

 

the X500-Q840s ($1700) is really going to make the Q850 ($1900) less attractive now (both models have 2 hard drives, SSD + HD)

I'm sure the Q830 hasn't made its exit yet, it just seems to be sold out in lots of places

Toshiba still considers this their "best seller" in the series

http://laptops.toshiba.com/laptops/qosmio/X500

 

hello guys! where in saudi arabia can i get this superb machine?? thanks

 

Yes this is Toshiba's probably best Qosmio machine due to it being so expensive, SLI would of brought the price up like 1,000 lol, especially if it was going to be GDDR5. You might as well just go somewhere out of the country its difficult to get it, i guess you will have to go out of the country.